Bo Sacks Speaks Out: Welcome to the Era of Permanent Disruption

For decades, we publishers waited for the storm to pass. Every conference, every hallway conversation, someone would say, “Once things stabilize…” Here’s the truth: stabilization isn’t coming. Disruption isn’t a phase. It’s the new climate. We live in it now.

This is the age of permanent disruption, where truth feels negotiable, trust is on life support, and artificial intelligence is both our eager intern and our existential threat. The audience? Anxious, skeptical, and bone-tired of being spun. And honestly, can you blame them?

This isn’t just a cultural hiccup. It’s a business crisis. A credibility crisis. A survival crisis.

We’re in a fractured media universe where influencers, creators, and algorithms shape perception before your editor even hits “approve.” When a chatbot outranks elected officials as a trusted source, the problem isn’t that people believe AI. It’s that they’ve stopped believing in institutions. And guess what? We’re one of those institutions.

Here’s what really grinds my Bo-gears: too many publishers talk about AI like it’s just a cost-cutting tool. Efficiency! Savings! That misses the emotional earthquake under our feet. People are scared, scared of losing jobs, scared of losing relevance, scared of being replaced by a machine that never calls in sick or asks for health insurance.

Publishers now wear two hats: users of AI and translators of AI. If we don’t explain what we’re doing to our teams, our freelancers, and most importantly, our readers, we feed the distrust that’s eating this industry alive. Silence looks like secrecy. Secrecy looks like manipulation. And manipulation kills trust.

Look at what’s happening in scientific and academic publishing: floods of AI-generated junk submissions, fake authors, fabricated citations. Retractions everywhere. Meanwhile, newsroom research shows that when editors clearly label where AI helped and how humans checked the work, trust goes up, not down. The problem isn’t the tool. It’s the secrecy.

Here’s the kicker: clarity sells. People don’t need more content. They need truth, context, and perspective. They want someone to help them make sense of the chaos without talking down to them. That’s what real publishing is. It’s not a traffic game anymore. It’s a trust game.

The Surprising Strength of Print in a Digital Cacophony

Let me tell you something that should be shouted from every publishing rooftop: print has a commanding edge in this trust economy. In a world drowning in digital noise, algorithmic manipulation, and content that disappears as fast as it appears, a printed magazine or newspaper makes a profound statement: This mattered enough to craft, edit, design, print, and physically deliver to you. That intention carries extraordinary weight in an age of throwaway content.

Think about what print represents in practical terms. When The Economist lands on your doorstep, when National Geographic arrives in your mailbox, when a beautifully designed trade publication crosses your desk, it signals investment. Someone believed in this content enough to commit resources, time, and physical materials to its creation. You can’t recall it with an edit. You can’t memory-hole it with a delete button. It exists as a tangible record, and that permanence breeds accountability.

The numbers back this up. Study after study confirms that readers consistently rank print publications higher on trust metrics than their digital counterparts. A 2023 MarketingSherpa study found that 82 percent of consumers trust print ads more than any digital advertising format. When people read claims in print, they perceive them as more credible, more carefully vetted, more legitimate. That’s not sentiment—that’s measurable market advantage.

Consider reader comprehension and retention. Neuroscience research from institutions like MIT and Norway’s Stavanger University demonstrates that people reading on paper show better recall, deeper comprehension, and stronger emotional connection to content compared to screen reading. When someone reads your cover story in print, they’re more likely to remember it, understand its nuances, and act on its insights. In business publishing, that translates directly to impact and influence.

The sensory experience matters too. The heft of quality paper, the deliberate act of turning pages, the absence of notification pings and infinite scroll, these aren’t quaint anachronisms. They’re features that command attention in an attention-deficit world.

Look at luxury and lifestyle publishing. Brands like Monocle, Kinfolk, and Cereal have built thriving businesses on premium print experiences precisely because their audiences crave refuge from digital overload. These aren’t legacy publications clinging to the past; they’re insurgent brands that recognized print’s unique value proposition. When everything is digital, print becomes distinctive. When everything is free and abundant, print’s scarcity and cost signal quality.

Even in B2B sectors, smart publishers are rediscovering print’s hidden leverage. When trade publications shifted to all-digital during pandemic budget cuts, many found their influence diminished. Advertisers missed the prestige and longevity of print placements. Readers missed the focused, in-depth coverage that print’s format encouraged. Now we’re seeing a print renaissance in specialized industries, not despite digital disruption, but because of it. There are reports that several sectors, including home design, food, and specialty business publications, are showing print revenue growth as publishers reposition print as a premium product.

Here’s the strategic insight many miss: print doesn’t need to be your only platform or even your primary one. It needs to be your statement platform. Your flagship. Your trust anchor. Think of print as the foundation that gives your digital extensions credibility. When readers know you produce a serious print publication, your digital content inherits that authority. The reverse rarely works; purely digital brands struggle to establish the same gravitas when they attempt to move into print.

Consider advertising dynamics. While digital ad rates get hammered by ad fraud, viewability issues, and banner blindness, print advertising commands premium rates because it delivers something increasingly rare: guaranteed attention in a distraction-free environment. Advertisers can’t click away. Ad blockers don’t exist. The ads live alongside editorial content that readers have deliberately chosen to engage with. For certain categories, luxury goods, considered purchases, B2B solutions, print’s environment remains unmatched.

The longevity factor shouldn’t be underestimated either. A print magazine might sit in a waiting room for months, be passed between colleagues, live on a coffee table, be saved in a personal library. One printing generates multiple reading occasions. Digital content vanishes into the feed, buried under today’s tsunami. Print persists. That extended shelf life amplifies both readership and influence in ways that page views can’t capture.

And here’s what should excite forward-thinking publishers: print’s comeback among younger readers. Gen Z and younger millennials, who grew up digital-native, are increasingly drawn to print precisely because it’s different from what they’ve always known. Independent bookstores and magazine shops are thriving near college campuses. Small-press magazines and zines are booming. These aren’t people rejecting technology; they’re people sophisticated enough to recognize when an older technology actually serves them better for certain purposes.

The environmental argument, once print’s Achilles heel, is shifting too. As awareness grows about digital infrastructure’s massive energy consumption, data centers, constant device manufacturing and disposal, streaming’s carbon footprint, and print’s impact looks more balanced, especially when publishers use sustainable forestry practices and responsible production methods. A magazine you keep for years might have a smaller environmental footprint than the energy required to stream video content you immediately forget.

So when I say print has an edge, I mean it has multiple edges: trust, comprehension, permanence, prestige, focus, longevity, and differentiation. These aren’t nostalgic sentiments. They’re competitive advantages that smart publishers can leverage strategically in a landscape where trust is the ultimate currency and attention is the ultimate scarcity.

Scarcity equals credibility. Quality equals authority. Permanence equals accountability. Print delivers all three in ways that digital, for all its speed and reach, simply cannot replicate. That’s not a limitation of digital; it’s the nature of the medium. Each format has its strengths. The publishers who win will be those who deploy each medium for what it does best, rather than trying to force one to do everything.

The future of publishing isn’t print versus digital. It’s print and digital, strategically deployed, with print serving as the trust foundation and quality benchmark that makes everything else more credible. When readers know you care enough to print it, they believe you care enough to get it right.

That’s not strategy. That’s survival.

Trust has never been more valuable or more fragile. And like it or not, publishers are now the tightrope walkers balancing on that beam.

The next phase of this industry won’t reward the loudest voices or the fastest fingers. It’ll reward those who help people understand a fractured world without insulting their intelligence.

That’s not just strategy. That’s responsibility.

Just one publisher’s opinion.